BillionGraves Plus

By opening a Plus account, you can access all of the BillionGraves features.

30 Records Watches: A Record Watch means you’ve submitted a specific surname you’d like to monitor at BillionGraves. Whenever a headstone with your specified surname is transcribed, you are notified via email. With these notifications, you’ll always know the latest data on your family history.

Virtual Walkthrough: from any record view, you can click on the Nearby Records tab, where you will be able to see surrounding headstones in that cemetery. This is a great way to learn additional information about other people buried in that cemetery. We hope you make valuable research connections as you experience the whole cemetery where your ancestor is buried.

Mobile Records Search: You can search and view all BillionGraves records directly from your iPhone, iPad, or Android device in addition to searching on the web. This means that while you are in a cemetery, you’ll be able to lookup a name to help you find a specific headstone or specific surnames buried in that cemetery.

Favorites: This feature is coming soon, but we’re really excited to share it with you. You’ll be able to keep track of all your favorite BillionGraves records in one place. Once you mark a record as a favorite, you’ll never have to search for it again; it will be easily accessible from your Favorites page.

The BillionGraves Plus account is only $9.99 per year. And if 30 Record Watches isn’t enough, you can purchase Notification Packages, which include 10 additional Record Watches. You can purchase a Notification Package even if you don’t have the Plus account. For more information on signing up for a BillionGraves Plus account, visit BillionGraves.com.

Earn New Features for Free

Because we love our volunteers, we have started a program to reward you for your hard work: you can earn features just by uploading new images! When you upload just 500 images, you will receive 1 Records Watch (you can be emailed notifications when a certain surname has been added to the BillionGraves database). At 1000 images, you’ll receive an additional Records Watch. Then, you’ll continue to earn features for every 1000 images you upload. Visit the Upgrade page for more details. We know you’ll enjoy making a habit out of recording headstones, and we want to reward you for your efforts.

Of course, all of these features only serve to enhance your experience on BillionGraves. Our database of records will always be free. You do not need a BillionGraves Plus account in order to continue using BillionGraves.

We hope you are as excited about these new features as we are. Thanks again to all of our volunteers—image uploaders and transcribers alike—we couldn’t do it without you! Start uploading more pictures so you can earn your first Records Watch!

We’ve added some new features to the BillionGraves website, and we are excited for you to try them out.

The first is the ability to message other BillionGraves users. Go to a specific cemetery page, and below the map, click the tab labeled “Contributors.” You can view every user that contributed to documenting that cemetery.

If you click on a contributor’s user name, a box will pop up with basic information about that user—their user name and location, if they’ve disclosed it—and an option to send them a message.

We’ve updated the Dashboard to improve your experience on BillionGraves.com. Your profile is at the top of the page, and you can easily keep track of your progress, including the number of images you’ve submitted or transcribed. From the Dashboard, you can join or create a team and keep track of its progress. We’ve also made it easy for you to invite your friends to join BillionGraves: you can send an email or share on Facebook information for friends and family to learn more about BillionGraves.

Another new feature added to the Dashboard is the Request Board. From the Request Board, you can Request a Cemetery. This means if there is a cemetery or specific headstones you would like to see documented and included on BillionGraves, you can put out a request. Then, people living in the area of the cemetery can accept the request and visit that cemetery and take pictures for you.

How it works:

Add a request: You can Add a Request to request images of specific headstones in a specific cemetery. This request will be posted on the Request Board and sent to users who live in the area of your requested cemetery. When another user accepts your request and uploads one or more images from your specified cemetery, you will receive an email telling you how many images were uploaded and giving you the option to begin transcribing those images.

Receive cemetery requests in your area: On the Manage My Requests page, you can sign up to be notified of any cemetery requests in your area. You won’t receive cemetery requests unless you sign up. If any requests are posted within the area you specify, you will be sent an email with details about the request.

Accept a request: To accept a request, go to the Request Board, find a cemetery request near you, and click on it. Below the map in the Request Information box, you will be able to read any additional information about the request. Click “accept request” if you wish to complete someone’s request.

If you want to review requests you’ve submitted and accepted, go to the Manage My Requests page.

Check out all these new features! We appreciate your efforts, and we are always working hard to improve your experience with BillionGraves.

We are always looking for ways to improve your experience with BillionGraves, and today we have added two new features to transcribing:

You can now transcribe sets of linked images together. You will know if you have a set of images to transcribe if below the transcription text boxes, you see a row of thumbnails of the images that are linked together.

Now you can choose the country from which you would like to transcribe headstones.

Note: if you are having any problems with the transcription page, clear your browser’s cache. This should resolve any problems. If anything is still having problems after clearing the cache, please contact us and let us know.

For those who are following the continuing steam of helpful updates, BillionGraves has recently released a version 2.0.1 of the BillionGraves app for Android and for Apple. While no solution is perfect, each step gets us closer. We try to not make it huge burden by keeping the number of updates down to a minimum. Generally there could be an update once every month or two unless there is something that needs more immediate attention. We invite you to continue to check back to this blog to find out more in the future.

Version 2.01 is easy to update on an Android device using the status bar on the phone or tablet. Apple helps the update process through iTunes. Either way, we would suggest that you find a way to stay current with the updates as they are released.

If you need some assistance in understanding how to update your device, you are welcome to send a note to support@billiongraves.com.